"Commercial" posts

[RWH]

Since I have been looking through this forum for years now it has never been that badly filled up with commercials, sometimes it seems like watching private TV.
Dear allsep-people, I don`t want to bash your technology, but your behaviour is really far away from what could be called sticking to facts. I used to love this forum as many competent people used to share their opinion with others and with not that skilled chromatographers. But I hate reading Your commercials here.

[SIELC_Tech]

My original reply was about zwitter ions and I believe the massages related to the topic of retaining zwitter ions and achieving good peak shape. I am just wondering how is this different from the suggestions and statements W-people are making about Xterra, Atlantis etc. At least we are always stating that we are manufacturers of the columns. All our replies are directed on aparticular requst for the solution/advice.

[Kostas Petritis]

Personally, I do not think that any of the people associated with a commerical company manufacturer overuled the "policy of the house" (at least not recently... in the past there were such sporadic cases). They kept suggested their products to compounds that they thought their product would be suitable with not unsolicited advertising etc.

Furthermore, some of the most inspiring advices/explanations/suggestions/comments comes from people that are affiliated with commercial companies.

Having said that, there are two kind of these people. The ones that reply in any nature of messages trying to help out even if it has to do with their products or not (i.e. or in general about chromatography theory, tips etc.) and the ones that will reply only if at the same time they can promote their product and nothing else. That is the only thing I would approach to some of the people, although it is not against the "rules".

[admin]

I'll echo Kostas' comments.

The "common sense" rules are:

a. you can talk about your own products so long as it's in the proper context (i.e., anwering a question or solving a problem).
b. you can't bad-mouth the competition.

Within the context of those rules, I think it's perfectly normal for people who work for manufacturers to post disproportionately about their own products; those are the ones they're familiar with.

Over the five-plus years that the Forum has been around, there have only been about a half-dozen cases of out-and-out abuse (which is actually quite remarkable, and says a lot about the chromatography community!). Most of the borderline cases are self-policing in the sense that after a while, those people get a reputation for "selling" and their credibility drops accordingly.

-- Tom Jupille (Chrom Forum admin)

[SIELC_Tech]

Thank you Tom and Kostas,

Like you said I know our products well that is why sometimes I am giving "a bias" advice, but this advice might help. In my opinion it is better to try something new which works than try to 101 things with the column from your drawer. At the end the cost of labor (in US at least) is much higher than cost of new column. Over last few months I observed that people tried to certain applications/conditions for weeks without a good result and I am always wondering if anybody counting "soft" money. We are all in the business some in column manufacturing some in drug development and production but in any business you have to be efficient (money and time wise). While somebody can spend time "reinventing the wheel" the competitors are moving (pharma, chemical, food and any other competitive business).
What I am thinking is to make an "Olympic" competition when a few teams will develop a few "standard" methods (the toughest in industry) and then the panel will compare the result. This might stimulate the "good" competition and create several useful applications. You can even issue a title "Best in Industry" not based on everybody proclaiming "I am the best" but on the results of this "standard tough separations".
If somebody in power can support this idea that would be great for the end user.

[Einar Ponten]

I think the old topic:
"HPLC conditions for basic compound? [June 1, 2004]"
http://www.sepsci.com/chromforum/viewtopic.php?t=780
should be moved to the Water Cooler in context of this discussion.

Manufacturers are discussing and "agree to disagree" reflecting that there are often different alternatives and opinions. This is also valuable for everybodys learning and both end-users and manufacturers need a dialog and perspectives.

[Uwe Neue]

I personally got hooked on this board when I was looking for subjects related to HPLC troubleshooting, a column that I used to write for American Laboratory. I found that many problems are quite interesting, and so I am returning to this board frequently. The reason that I am stating this first is to make clear that have no assignment or that I am feeling compelled to sell my company's products.

On the other hand, as a representative of a company, I have of course much more experience with the products that we make and sell than with competive products. As a consequence, when I suggest something, it may very well involve our products. This is even more likely, if our products have unique features that can not be found with competitive products. In this case, there is no way around this, and the name of the product must be mentioned.

This is of course the case for my colleagues at competing companies as well. Yuri Zelechonok has no other solutions to offer than his mixed-mode phases, and so he will mention them whenever it seems to fit. I personally find this annoying, but probably more so because I do not have his solutions in my bag...

On the other hand, this could simply be question of style. I am never annoyed by Chris Pohl's posts, since they reflect an excellent knowledge of chromatography, and because he does not shy away from tackling problems that have nothing to do with his company's products. The same is true with Einar Ponten, for example.

My advice to Yuri would be to get involved in discussions that do not force him to talk about his products. Maybe one will get a more balanced view of his abilities, and consequently of his company's products.

Feel free to disagree with me...

[SIELC_Tech]

Dear Uwe,

Yuri Zelechonok never posts under SIELC_Tech, because he usually does this under his name. I am from another point of view only post under SIELC_Tech

VO

[SIELC_Tech]

What I would suggest is to make "Ignore The User" button (like other boards have) - in this case you can block posts from people who bring no value to you. This might help to avoid heated arguments between "rivals".

[Uwe Neue]

OK, VO,

I appologize to Yuri to have assumed that the SIEL Tech posts were all from him. However, my advice then applies even more to you.

Maybe one could get a better view of your abilities, if you would not exclusively peddle your product, but also get involved in other advice and discussions.

The "Ignore the user" button is not going to help. Just think about it...

[Markus Laeubli, Metrohm]

Since I have been looking through this forum for years now it has never been that badly filled up with commercials, sometimes it seems like watching private TV.
Dear allsep-people, I don`t want to bash your technology, but your behaviour is really far away from what could be called sticking to facts. I used to love this forum as many competent people used to share their opinion with others and with not that skilled chromatographers. But I hate reading Your commercials here.

As one of those commercial guy I assume that all of us will help to solve a problem or answer a question. Of course everything that I post here is biased to some extent. But which post is not? I do have my experiences and try to share them. As everybody else like lab people (often using just one brand), professors (quite often funded by instrument manufacturers) and so on.
In my opinion it is important that the user of this baord immediately sees where somebody is coming from. Then the user can decide how to read such a message.

[HW Mueller]

A view from the university,
of course, industry´s imputs can be extremely important. Even strongly biased inputs can be helpful, or just amusing, at worst: worth ignoring. But when bias yields misleading contributions? I see grave problems in ignoring those. On the other hand, it is also difficult to point out such transgressions. Thus my suggestion to industry representatives: Take complaints, even feeble ones, seriously. Most of you have done a splendid job at that in my opinion.
(By "complaints" I mean such statements as that of RWH, Sep. 23, or my remarks, some time ago, regarding the need for columns with optimum single type of performance).
One example: The statement (in my opinion only a mildly misleading one) "use of ion-pairing reagents should become a history", has been stated by others, in maybe a slightly biased form, something like: modern reverse phase columns rarely need ion-pairing reagents.

[Tim]

I don't have an issue with vendor's posts, like others in the thread, so long as they are relevant to the original request. If you have a product that you know does the job, tell us. Having said that, we should all be capable of going out there and doing a search to find these things out for ourselves too.

Drifting slightly OT (I suppose I can - this is the Water Cooler afterall), I have to think twice about replying to questions like "Does anyone have a method for compund X?", where compound X is something our company makes which just went off or will soon be going off patent. Damned generics

[Newman768]

Every forum is living (and dying too) with the people who writes and askes and replies.
That means that a forum is depending on the readiness of all users to respect and follow the written (and unwritten) rules.

From my point of view SIELC_Tech with his first and foremost commercial postings has broken an unwritten rule, even if nobody could pin him down for breaking a written one.
On the other hand I have to admit that his commercial postings are focused on a specific problem of lc. The idea behind the PrimeSep columns is more with good prospects than other solutions and maybe much easier to handle. (Guess after waiting some weaks more I will know for sure...)
But enough is enough. I don't want to read in nearly every thread concerning such problems the commercial postings from SIELC_Tech!
After all you (SIELC_Tech) only provides us with the idea of the PrimeSep columns. But most people asking questions wants explanations and real help.

[tom jupille]

I think Uwe hit the nail on the head with is comment about it often being "question of style". That certainly applies to the SIELC_Tech posts which triggered this whole thread (don't take this the wrong way, but you do often sound more like a salesman than a support person ); I haven't seen anything objectionable about the content.

While I can (and do) simply delete inappropriate posts, I have neither the time, the resources, nor the inclination to make this a fully-moderated forum (the type where messages are screened and/or edited before posting). In fact, the occasional spirited discussion makes things interesting.